Mirabeau: Living the Provence rosé wine dream

“Ever thought about selling up, moving somewhere new and starting to make wine?” Georgina Hindle speaks to Stephen and Jeany Cronk about how they turned a dream into reality, and tastes through the latest Mirabeau rosé wines.

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Mirabeau Factfile

Business established: 2009
First vintage: ‘Classic’, 2010
Owners: Stephen and Jeany Cronk
Winemaker: Nathalie Longefay
Model: Négociant with estate wine expected
Range includes: Classic, Pure, Etoile, La Folie sparkling, Azure, Belle Année, Forever Summer, X and Prêt-à-Porter Rosé to Go!
Estate: 20 hectares (ha), with 14ha under vine and planted to Grenache, Cinsault and Rolle, located in Notre Dame des Anges.

Celebrating their tenth anniversary last year, the acclaimed Mirabeau range now includes a sparkling rosé and eight still wines – one in a can – and can be found in more than 50 markets around the world. It also makes a gin.

Promoting biodiversity

The pair said they were committed to environmentally-responsible viticulture and wanted to intervene as little as possible in the vineyard.

‘It’s a survival essential,’ says Stephen, who believes strongly in the idea of regenerative farming; this involves encouraging biodiversity that will then renourish the soil and help build resilience to erosion and drought. It is hoped that limited ploughing will encourage vines to store more CO2 in the soil.